This weekend we will use powerful, time-tested and holistic lenses from the Yoga-Tantra tradition to honestly explore the question of how we can cultivate greater balance and harmony in our lives today.

Yoga is much vaster than it is often commonly perceived these days. This weekend immersion will allow us to discover or deepen our understanding of the robust, practical principles that underpin yoga: the art and science of sustainable, evolutionary living. We will explore a range of practical supports, techniques and frames of reference from the Yoga-Tantra tradition that can help us foster harmony in the grounded reality and amidst the various challenges and opportunities of our lives today.

What will we do on this program?

Yoga is about working with all of who we really are, and fostering inclusive harmony: unification of all parts of our experience. We will explore what it really means to cultivate harmony by working honestly and realistically with ourselves through the lenses of the miraculous powers, lenses and vehicles of our physical capabilities, our sense powers, our energy, emotions and feelings, our minds and intellects and our expressive capacities. As such, we will work with movement, inquiry, sound and song, discussion, story, meditation and interaction. Whatever lens we explore through: body, mind, senses, emotions for example, we will cultivate our capacity to invite all of ourself into the present moment and so actively practice ‘yogification’: bringing the harmonising power of yoga into whatever we are doing, wherever we find ourselves. The guiding questions are: what is ‘up’ for me now? What do I really need to do to cultivate my deepest longings?

Outline of the weekend: Note that James’ programs are always unique and evolve in the context of the particular group, these descriptions are intended to just give an outline.

Friday 12th May 6:00-8:30pm – Introductory session

We will gather in a circle and begin our exploration together. This session will introduce how we will work, and will involve some inquiry, some simple exercises, discussion and perhaps some song. It may also go some way to answering a question like: ‘What is this thing called yoga and how can it help me cultivate harmony in my life?’

Saturday 13th May 9:00am-5:00pm

Saturday 9:00am-12noon: Yogic movement exploration Yoga āsana as training for life: how we can use our time working with physical yoga practices to support ease and steadiness through the spectrum of our daily lives. In particular, we will look at rehabilitating, reinforcing, and refining healthy neuro-muscular patterns and efficient kinetic chains through the body for safe, easy and effective movement in daily life and in more demanding movement activities.

Sunday 10:00-12:30 Morning Movement Exploration: In this session, we will continue our exploration of the technologies of haṭha yoga:

-Working with yogic understandings to harness the miraculous gifts of the ‘divine vehicle’ of our ‘sacred body’.

-Deepening our experiential understanding of movement principles and haṭha yoga technologies to empower our work with any style of ‘physical’ yoga practice or broader movement modality through all stages of life.

-Exploring Balance and Efficiency: How we can harness our work with physical practices so they can support and empower all aspects of our lives.

-Using ‘physical’ practices to deepen self-trust and awareness.

12:30-2:00 lunch and break

2:00-4:00 Closing session Yogic Warriorhood in Our World Today: Inquiry, discussion, meditation and kirtan: Focusing on practical frames and supports encoded in the Yoga Sūtra and Bhagavad Gītā, we will consider the archetype of the yogic warrior and how useful and important it can be in all facets of our lives and especially in these times of technological bombardment, information overload and media manipulation.

A few words more about Kirtan:
Yoga and the Power of Sound: Call and response singing and chanting with James Boag
The yoga tradition offers myriad tools we can work with to cultivate integration and recover our innate capacities for deep presence and sustainable wellbeing. These include many sound-based techniques and practices. The extraordinary visionaries and research scientists of the ancient yoga tradition recognised the pervasive, penetrative power of sound and how the readily accessible resources of our own voices can be harnessed to foster harmony through the whole of our being.
The call and response singing and chanting of kirtan, is simple, yet powerful, cleansing and uplifting. James will also speak briefly about kirtan, Sanskrit as an energy-based language, the symbolism and effects of the words we use in the practice, and how kirtan relates to other practices and paths of yoga.
Everyone welcome! Do not worry if you are not a virtuoso singer. The joy and practical benefits of yoga are open to everyone.

About James
Originally from Yorkshire, James is an internationally renound teacher of yoga and applied yoga philosophy.
James is known globally for his storytelling, his rich kirtans, deep meditations, principle-based approach to asana/natural movement and for bringing the timeless wisdom of the traditional scriptural teachings vividly into the context of our lives today. He has been teaching for over twenty years, teaching yoga since 2003 and leading integrated programs on applied yoga philosophy around the world since 2009. James studied Sanskrit in India and regularly returns to Mysore, South India where he completed his MA in Sanskrit, to lead courses on the Bhagavad Gita, Yoga Sutras and Indian Mythology.
More about James: http://www.jamesboagyoga.com/

ONLY 12 SPACES AVAILABLE FOR THE FULL weekend!
– In order to guarantee the event we must have 10 confirmed by the end of March, so don’t delay!!

This will be a very special event, as we can fit only a small number of students, which makes it a lot more personal. You will be in the middle of nature at Yoga Frog Sanctuary and if we are blessed with a sunny weekend there is promisse of outdoors yoga and camp fire.